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Shoshana Gordon/Axios
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Higher interest rates were supposed to bring a lot of pain for Americans. So far that hasn't happened.
Why it matters: The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday, keeping rates higher than originally anticipated, but in his afternoon news conference Fed chair Jay Powell made it clear he's ready to pivot in the event the pain makes an appearance.
The intrigue: When the Fed started hiking rates in 2022, some progressives feared that higher interest rates would eventually drive up unemployment, causing a lot of pain.
That hasn't happened — the job market is incredibly strong.
"We thought — and most people thought — there would have to be probably significant dislocations somewhere in the economy, perhaps the labor market, to get inflation all the way down from the very high levels it was at," Powell said. "That didn't happen. That's a tremendous result."